Recent findings show that kids growing up in low-income households had lower concentrations of brain matter in the hippocampus region responsible for learning, memory, and emotional behavior as compared to kids growing up in well-off homes. Although the research findings are significant, the meaning of the difference is more complicated to determine.

Researcher Amitabh Chandra, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, heading up the study, says it does show how closely the environment and brain development are linked. The role that parenting styles and other influences like nutrition play in contributing to brain development need time to be pulled apart. The long-term negative consequences of growing up in a stressed home, often the result of insufficient household income, should serve as the basis for developing assertive and appropriate policies that support struggling families raise healthy and resilient children

New York State does not have a statewide anti-poverty campaign, nor does the City of Utica. Would you like to see Governor Cuomo or local officials attack this problem head on by setting up a commission to start tacking childhood poverty? Let us know what you think. Where would you start?